10 Current WWE Superstars That Belong In Another Era
Recast In The Past
Chris Jericho's unbelievable match with Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12 earlier this year was a thrilling exhibition of 'Y2J's greatest heel hits pitched against the futuristic heroism of 'The Cleaner'.
Screaming and shouting at anybody who'd listen, the 'Fozzy' singer appeared to be having the time of his life with WWE's micromanaged shackles removed, much in the way he used to in the first few years of his career with the organisation.
Arriving on 9 August 1999, Jericho walked into a white hot WWE that needed him less than he needed them. Everybody was over, everybody was a star, and though Vince McMahon ran the rule as he always had, talent and creative heads alike had freer experimental reign in an era that now comparatively looks like pro wrestling's wild west.
Little of it would fly today. WWE operates within numerous tight parameters after nearly two decades of maintaining status quo in the middle of the road. Profits rarely soar, but neither do they go through the floor. Talent throttling is subsequently rife, with numerous stars forced into comfort zones and pigeonholes as per strict instructions and ultra-tight scripting.
Skilled and malleable, Jericho looked like a different performer within seconds of first appearing for New Japan. How might some of the other roster rank-and-files have done in a different time or place?
10. Bray Wyatt - Mid-1990s WWF
As WWE's 1980s boom almost became a complete bust in the 1990s, Vince McMahon had far too many extra-curricular distractions clouding his fragile reputation as a wrestling visionary. From scandals around steroids, sex, and steroids again, to his noisy neighbours from WCW suddenly becoming quite the southern discomfort, McMahon was dragged from pillar to post like a knowing babyface in a strap match.
It's at least some rational explanation for the horrendous cast of characters he plugged countless roster gaps with whilst Bret Hart, The Undertaker and The Kliq tried to maintain order at the top of the card.
Bray Wyatt's 2012 NXT arrival was glowingly compared to one of 1995's long-considered missed opportunities. In Waylon Mercy, McMahon had stumbled upon a gimmick with far more nuance than the smoke and strobes of the time supplied. The beauty was sadly only skin deep - Danny Spivey was no longer the fit physical specimen required to carry the persona beyond a painfully short six months on the show.
'The New Face Of Fear' was thus both a welcome reboot and revelatory reinvention. Husky Harris had been swallowed whole by the 'Eater Of Worlds', shortly before the WWE machine would again do the same to Wyndham Rotunda.
Bray's career has since become the saddest running joke despite the faintest of flashes that a main eventer might lurk underneath. More desperate times may have afforded the desperate measures needed to offer him much more than he ended up with.